Matias Duarte, Palm’s Senior Director of Human Interface and User Experience has left the company. Duarte was one of the main presenters at CES when Palm announced webOS and is largely responsible for the beautiful interface that graces webOS. The beauty and elegance of webOS is not lost upon us, so webOS enthusiasts owe a debt of gratitude to Duarte. All Things D points to sources who say Duarte is leaving Palm for Google to work on the Android OS. The latter is chock full of raw power, but could certainly benefit from the expertise of Duarte.
Duarte’s loss is big for Palm and HP, but he’s already laid the groundwork for webOS that should allow for a successor to pick up where he’s left off. It will be interesting to see if Android starts to see any tell tale signs of Duarte’s UI. Prior to working for Palm, Duarte was the design chief at Helio.
“It will be interesting to see if Android starts to see any tell tale signs of Duarte’s UI.”
If it is patented by Palm, it would be not so easy, but in other OS I don´t know how the things will work to avoid the Palms patent or just get a license.
Uhh, you missed the more important part of Matias’ resume. He worked for about four years leading UI for Danger. With Andy Rubin, etc.